Plants do not always give permission. You will know very clearly when you have been refused. It just feels plain wrong. On the other side of the coin, sometimes it can feel as though particular plants summon us, repeatedly appearing in our dreams or thoughts until we find them. This happens most often when a herb that we gather regularly is at the right stage to harvest and we know exactly where it is on our foraging patch. In cases like this we may explain away the experience by telling ourselves it is a subconscious tracking of the seasons, rather than a process of communication between plant and human. Sometimes it feels much more profound than that, though.
Take my recent experience with attempting to gather Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria). I had not so far harvested this mushroom but had formed the intention to work with it after reading herbalist Henriette Kress's account of using it to ease the pain of sciatica. I had been keeping an eye out in the locality for a couple years but so far had not seen any growing. When autumn came around again, I started to think about my plan to harvest some. I visited some potentially suitable woodlands, finding plenty of Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) and other beautiful fungi, but not a single Fly Agaric. After a few more unsuccessful expeditions, I woke up one Sunday morning with a strong feeling that I should go to a particular woodland to search. This woodland was further afield than my normal foraging range, but I had an insistent feeling about it, and there was no way that I was going to ignore it. I was sure that this was going to be the day that I would actually find Fly Agaric. To get to the woodland, I had to drive for about an hour. When I arrived, I half expected to find some almost immediately, but I did not. There was no one else around, and I walked around for an hour or so, looking for glimpses of the iconic red caps under the trees, but there were none in sight. I was disappointed and decided that I had been completely deluded to believe that I had in some way been summoned to this place. My ‘strong feeling’ must have been my over-active imagination. I was just about to give up when I paused and checked in with myself. I realized that my intense desire to find the mushroom had made me forget my usual foraging attitude. I had arrived full of expectation. I needed to slow down and bring to mind my positive intentions about how I wanted to work with this medicine. I sat down by a tree and surveyed my surroundings. The dampness of the moss began to seep through my jeans, but it felt good to be there, totally alone and away from the time scales and schedules of modern human life. I began to see everything around me from a different perspective. I could see just how much all life in this woodland was deeply interconnected. Sitting there, I felt as though I was part of it rather than just an observer of it. I got up and started walking into a stand of mature conifers. There was no beaten track, and I had to twist this way and that through the trees. I had no idea where I was going, but I carried on walking. It was totally silent, the only sound being the snap of a twig when I stepped on one, something that I tried to avoid after the first time it happened. Despite my feeling of connectedness, this place felt more than a little eerie. I remember a thought popping into my head that I could be lost in these woods for days, but I immediately dismissed it. It is impossible to be lost in a wood for days in Southern England. I walked on. Suddenly I crested a small rise, and ahead of me under the trees in the soft, green stillness was a large colony of shining red-and-white-spotted Fly Agaric mushrooms. They exuded magic and mystery and intense power. It took my breath away to see them like that. These mushroom beings were definitely not to be trifled with or taken advantage of. Was it my imagination, or was the stillness more intense in this area? It felt as though I had wandered into another dimension. Oblivious of the damp, I sat down on the ground to take it all in. After some time, I sensed that the mushroom colony was prepared to allow me to harvest a few of their number. I carefully placed a few in my basket, thanked them profusely for the lesson and their medicine, and then set off to find my way out of the woodland.
Off the beaten track in a silent woodland.
In order to make the most of any precious plant medicines that we gather from the wild, we need to harvest them with care. You could say that harvesting herbs is a simple and natural activity and there is no need to over-complicate it; however, there are some useful techniques that are worth considering in order to make the process easier and to ensure that the quality of the plant material is preserved. The practicalities of harvesting different types of herbs are covered in chapter 9, ‘Harvesting’; notes on harvesting specific herbs are given in the third section, ‘The Herbal Harvesting Year’.
Let us go through the guidelines for good practice in wildcrafting. These guidelines are important because they ensure that we are wildcrafting without causing harm to the environment and to the plant populations that we seek to work with. They also ensure that the plants that we gather will be of good quality, be safe to use as medicines and will not be wasted. As herbal practitioners, we also need to ensure that our actions will not cause conflict or disharmony with other people who connect with the land from which we are gathering.
Here in the United Kingdom the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) protects wild plants. The Act states that it is illegal to dig up or remove a plant (including algae, lichens, and fungi) from the land on which it is growing without the permission of the land owner. Small-scale responsible foraging of above-ground parts can be done along public rights of way or on land where there is free public access.
A green lane in my foraging territory.
We should never collect plants that are endangered or at-risk. It is our responsibility to make sure we know which species these are if we plan to forage for medicinal plants. Wherever we live in the world, we should get hold of a good field guide and do some research on the rare or protected plants that we may come across. In the United Kingdom, Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) lists the species that are protected by law. It is also worth noting that the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) maintains an up-to-date GB Red List showing all plants that are scarce or protected. This is really useful, because not all rare plants are protected by law, but they may be so scarce that they should not be gathered.
A Wiltshire river.
As well as individual species being protected, some land areas are protected under statutory designations. Here in the United Kingdom we have various levels of protection, including ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest’, ‘National Nature Reserves’ and ‘Local Nature Reserves’, for example. On land with a conservation designation, it is not permitted to pick any plant at all.
A good guideline to remember is that if you are out walking and you come across a plant that looks unusual and is not growing in abundance, then do not pick it under any circumstances, not even to identify it later at home. It is much more responsible to carefully photograph it, including a reference scale in the shot, or to sketch it. Get into the habit of carrying a botanical hand lens with you and examine the intricate details of plants that you find. Make some notes about its features, including the arrangement of its leaves on the stems, their shape, whether they are hairy or not, the shape of the stem, any scent and the appearance of the flowers or seed heads, if they are present. These less damaging recording methods should help you to identify it later on. I should also add that if you are photographing the unusual plant, take great care not to expose it by removing surrounding vegetation in order to get a better shot. This may make it more vulnerable to grazing or wind damage.
Even when gathering species that we know are common, it is important to gather only from plant populations that are abundant, and we should never collect more than 5% of the plants that are present. We should choose plants that are in the middle of the size range for a particular population, leaving the largest and smallest members of the community. Leaving the strongest plants to reproduce ensures that we are allowing the best plants to be perpetuated and leaving the smallest ones allows the younger plants to grow and mature.
Safety and quality issues also shape foraging guidelines. It makes sense to avoid gathering plants from heavily polluted